Not really the same. Reticulum cannot legally be used over ham radio bands. It uses encryption. Joorays nutband didn't use nostr or lock to an npub. Literally just sending data between 2 laptops using python. Basically a networking stack. Cool, but not similar at all. My goal is to have quick deploy integrated hardware using pi zero or similar devices(esp32 possibly eventually). That can connect to a phone for comms, and money.

As long as Reticulum is used with LoRa, WiFi, Weave etc. it should be fine. Even your main focus and the project name suggest using ham radio, the use of other radio techniques should be OK, but limited in distance.